Saving a Stolen Soul
by KindredWoD
Summary: InuYasha finally chooses Kikyo over Kagome. Now who will save the reincarnation when Kikyo becomes hellbent on retrieving the last piece of her stolen soul, and where will they keep her safe? Kag/Kog pairing, minor Inu/Kik bashing, lemon later
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** I don't own InuYasha or anything associated with it. If I did, I'd have a condo worth at least six figures and certain canine-type demons would be leashed to my bed.

**Warning:** There will be a lemon somewhere in the future. You have been warned nice and early.

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Another arrow encased by purifying purple light flew past Kouga's head, mere centimeters from his ear. _"Damn it!"_ he thought to himself as he started running a zigzag pattern through the forest. _"If I can't get away from her..."_ He dared not think of the consequences. A shallow moan from the one in his arms caused him to chance a glance down. He instantly regretted it. The blood spilling from her shoulder made it hard to distinguish the white haori from the red hakama pants. It was spreading down her chest, eluding to how deep her injuries ran. "Kagome!" Kouga gasped as he saw how much blood she was losing. It was far worse than he'd feared. He glanced back to see the white serpentine servants dashing through the trees, tracking his every move, leaving a clear trail for his pursuer to follow.

Looking forward again, Kouga leaped over a fallen log and then dashed to his right, continuing his path toward Kaede's village. Lady Kaede was the only miko he could think of strong enough to have a chance against the miko that pursued him. And even then, it might only be for a short while. _"If I can just get to the village, perhaps the old miko can erect a barr-"_ Kouga's thoughts were cut short as another arrow narrowly missed him, flying past his rib and the tail-feather flitting against his fur garb before embedding itself in a tree.

"Return my stolen soul, wolf demon!" came the commanding voice of his pursuer. Kikyo was much closer than Kouga had thought. Her fury was written on her face as she knelt atop the head of a giant soul-collector, which was keeping amazing pace with him, despite his shard-induced speed. "You will not outrun me!" she yelled at him as she drew another arrow and took aim.

"_No! I'll never make it to the village in time! She's too close for Kaede to stop her before she does something dangerous,"_ he thought as his heart began to race. _"I can't risk those people. In the state she's in, she'll probably threaten to destroy the village if I don't hand over Kagome. Or just destroy it outright!"_ The scents of the village started to find their way toward Kouga. A woman's stew she was cooking for her family. The freshly split wood a man cut for his fire. The dust a grandmother beat from a mat. He couldn't bring himself to put them in harm's way. The village was only a short distance past the trees. If he was going to make a decision, it had to be soon. Just as he was choosing which way to run away from the village, Kouga burst into a small clearing in the trees. In the center sat a small, square, vine-covered well. _"The Bone Eater's well!"_ he thought as he caught sight of it. _"Kagome's portal between her time and this one."_ The next moment felt like it stretched for eternity, but Kouga actually made the choice in a split-second.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing of InuYasha, just my own ideas. If I did, my car would be paid off already.

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Kouga offered a prayer to the gods and launched himself towards the opening of the well, the tiny miko clutched in his arms. Diving in, he screamed in his own mind, _"Please take Kagome home! Please keep her safe!"_ The bottom of the well rushed up toward him and a shiver doubt crept up his spine. Just as he thought it was in vain and twisted them around in midair so he would land first and not crush his beloved, what looked like tiny stars started flying past them. Kouga's eyes went wide as the bottom of the well dissolved into a void of black, save for the stars that passed all around him and even through him. As he glanced back up the way they came, the vanishing light from the well opening echoed of Kikyo's infuriated cry. A few moments later, he landed slowly and softly in the bottom of the well, still holding Kagome firmly in his grasp. When he glanced down at her, he noticed a glow from just below her chin, under the collar of her haori. Wanting to ensure she was safe, he knelt down to lay her partially on the ground and pulled the collar of the haori back a few centimeters to see what the light was. He nodded as he saw the glow ebbing away from the small reconstructed fragment of the Shikon jewel that hung around her neck on a thin necklace. "So that's how you pass through," he commented softly before gathering her back up into his arms and standing up again.

Looking up to the top of the well, Kouga noticed he couldn't see the sky. Instead, he saw what appeared to be the roof of a building, though it was different than any he'd seen before. _"This must be her time,"_ he thought before crouching and launching both of them out of the well, landing just outside of the upper edge. Ensuring he had a good grip on Kagome, he quickly glanced around to assess the situation. Boxes, scrolls, spine-bound books, and even a handful of decorative items surrounded him in the small room. Just as he was taking in the sight, he made the mistake of taking a deep breath. He immediately began coughing as his brain was assaulted with information from his nose. Dust, parchment, rice-paper, clay, dirt, aged wood, new wood, and untold numbers of other smells, some known and others he couldn't identify. It hit him hard enough to send him down to one knee as he tried to get his thinking straight.

"Mom! I think I heard something in the well-house. Kagome must be home!" he heard young male voice call from outside the room. Kouga looked up to see the door on one wall of the room slide open and a young boy with short hair and strange clothes stand silhouetted in the sunlight. "Who are..." the boy began to ask when he saw the fur-clad man kneeling next to the well. Before he could finish his question however, his eyes fell to the young woman in his arms. "KAGOME!" the boy cried out and ran toward Kouga with terror written on his young face. "MOM! Kagome's hurt!" he yelled as he knelt in front of Kouga, his hands flitting over Kagome's face, arm, shoulder, unsure of what to do. The boy's breath came in short, panicked pants as his gaze repeatedly flipped between Kagome and Kouga.

Kouga realized this boy knew Kagome and obviously cared about her to react in such a way. As he was about to explain who he was and why Kagome was hurt, a woman came through the same doorway the boy had, worry holding a firm grasp on her features. "Kagome!" she exclaimed as she ran to Kouga's side. Kouga realized this woman looked like an older version of Kagome and therefore must be her mother. That made the boy who called the woman "Mom" Kagome's younger brother. He put the pieces together in the time it took the woman to assess the situation. "What happened to her? Who are you? Where's InuYasha?" she asked frantically as she pulled back the collar of Kagome's haori to see where the blood was coming from. Before Kouga could answer, the woman was pulling on his upper arm as she stood up, urging him to follow suit. "Follow me. We need to get her in the house," she instructed him even as she was already walking.


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer:** Same as before. I own zip, zilch, nada, nothing, etc etc

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Following Kagome's mother and tailed by her younger brother, Kouga took the limp miko clutched in his arms up to the strange building a short distance away. In the aftermath of the initial shock to his senses, he consciously took smaller breaths and did so through his mouth as much as possible, telling himself that he had to remain in control to help Kagome. Once inside the door, he was dumbstruck for several seconds, having little to no idea about his surroundings. He recognized little of the furniture, decorations, and other items spread around the room. After his gaze did a sweep of the room, they landed on Kagome's mother, who was fluffing a pillow on what looked like a raised chair or futon type of surface. "Lay her here," the woman said as she motioned to Kouga. As the wolf demon settled Kagome onto the soft cushions just long enough for her fragile body, Kagome's mother turned to the youngest one in the room. "Souta, go get Grandfather and tell him to bring bandages and healing herbs. Quickly now," she said as she turned back to Kagome, kneeling by her side. The young boy quickly nodded and ran from the room through a different doorway, already calling out for his grandfather.

As Kagome's mother began to pull the haori back and reveal the wound, Kouga heard her breath catch in her throat. "Is... there anything I can do?" he asked tentatively.

The older woman glanced to Kouga for no more than a second before returning her attention to her daughter, carefully inspecting the wound. In that second, her gaze held an untold number of emotions. "Yes," she said barely above a whisper. "You can tell me who you are and what happened to my daughter."

"My name is Kouga of the Wolf Tribe. Kagome... she..." He tried to explain, but there was so much to tell, he didn't know how to begin. _"How much does her mother know?" _he pondered silently, his gaze falling back to the faintly breathing miko. _"She has a right to know what her daughter's involved in, but it would be difficult to explain just now."_ He then looked back to Kagome's mother and opened his mouth to say something, only to be cut off as Souta and a much older man came clambering into the room.

"Mom, I got the first-aid kit and a bunch of bandages from the bathroom! Grandpa has the herbs!" the young boy said as he ran to his mother's side, thrusting as white box with red markings on the top and sides to her. The older man, which Kouga guessed to be the boy and Kagome's grandfather, almost tripped over a cube-shaped piece of furniture while carrying something to where the rest of them were gathered. It appeared to be a long wooden box with no top. Inside were soil and small sprigs of growing herbs, most of which Kouga easily identified by the leaf-shapes, but did not dare try to confirm via smell in this closed-in space.

The box the old man carried was nearly dropped when he caught sight of Kouga. "Oh dear heavens!" the elder exclaimed. "You... you're a....!" he tried to say as he held the box in one hand and pointed an unsteady accusing finger at Kouga.

While Kagome's mother started cleaning her daughter's wound, Kouga stood back to his full height and faced the old man... then dropped to his knees before him, bowing his head. "Yes, I am a demon. But it was not I that caused the harm to Kagome." He heard the elder's breathing pause for a moment as he listened to the demon's words. "I brought Kagome back home to help her escape the one that hurt her and..." He added the last few words in a lower voice, as though he were trying to control his rage. "And... the one who refused to save her." Kouga took a slow breath before continuing. "If I am not welcome here, I will leave. I simply wish to know that Kagome is safe."

It was Kagome's mother that spoke up first. "Of course you're welcome here," she said as she reached for the box from the elder. Once it was in her hand, she plucked a few of the leaves from the plants and began to smear a white cream from a small jar over them, setting them aside one by one. Kouga brought himself upright while kneeling, looking to her as she spoke. "I can tell when someone's lying, and you are not. If all you want is for my daughter to be safe and well, then you may stay." Kouga took a sigh of relief and was about to express his thanks, but was cut off as she quickly continued. "However, once I have Kagome's wound tended to, I want the full story on what happened," she said in a stern, motherly voice.

"Of course," he quickly replied. "May I help in any way? With her wounds?" he asked. She nodded and told Souta to show him how to coat the herb leaves with the white cream, which Souta explained was called antiseptic and would prevent infection. The healing properties of the herbs evidently blended with this and sped up the healing process. While Kouga and Souta did as instructed, Kagome's mother started to stitch the wounds closed with a curved needle and thick black thread. Kouga knew it was a good sign when Kagome moaned and tried to squirm to the sensation of the needle. It meant she could still feel. The elder, which Souta called Gramps, fetched several blankets of brilliant colors and laid them over Kagome's legs, trying to keep her warm and compensate for blood loss. Once the stitching was done, Kagome's mother neatly laid the coated leaves over the wounds and bound the whole thing in fresh white bandages, wrapping it around Kagome's shoulder to ensure it would stay in place. As the family put the final wrappings in place, Kouga pretended to be very interested in the herbs remaining the box, averting his eyes for courtesy of not seeing Kagome without her haori.

"All we can do now is wait and pray," he heard Kagome's mother say. Kouga looked up as she was tucking in the sides of the blanket over Kagome's unconscious body. With a heavy sigh, she wiped the fine sheen of sweat from her brow with the back of her hand. She then turned where she knelt and started cleaning up the supplies they'd rushed into the room. She spoke even as she worked. "You said your name is Kouga, correct?"

"Yes, miss..." Kouga replied, leaving it hanging as he realized he didn't know the woman's name.

"Please, just call me Mama. It keeps things simple," she said with the smallest smile when she glanced up from her work to him. She packed the white box with red markings back into order and closed it, then folded Kagome's blood-stained haori and placed it on top. She passed the whole thing to Souta while saying, "Put that in the laundry room and the kit back where it belongs please, Souta." Souta nodded and disappeared with his parcel while she passed the herb box back to the grandfather. He too went off to put it back where he got it. Kouga quickly assessed that Mama was the head of the household, not the elder gentleman as he'd presumed. "Now then," she said as she sat on the floor and tucked her feet neatly next to her, leaning back against the couch her daughter laid upon. "Please tell me what happened."


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer:** I don't own anything that didn't originate from my own brain. Not making money from this. If I did, I'd have enough to buy every single InuYasha episode on DVD. Right now I'm lucky that I have the movie box-set.

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Kouga took a slow and deep breath, letting it out as he sat a short distance in front of her on the floor, sitting cross-legged with his tail sweeping the floor behind himself a bit nervously. He rested his hands before him, one on each knee as he looked her square in the face. "Are you aware that your daughter is a miko? Specifically the Shikon Miko, destined to gather and reassemble the fragments of the Shikon Jewel?" Mama nodded and commented that she'd been told why Kagome had to keep going back to the Feudal Era. "Did they tell you that Kagome is also the reincarnation of a miko called Priestess Kikyo?" To this, Mama shook her head with a slightly confused look. Kouga proceeded to explain what Kagome had told him, about Kikyo being burned with the jewel, about Naraku's dirty deeds, and about InuYasha being in love with Kikyo. During his story, Souta and his grandfather rejoined them in the living room; Souta took a seat next to his mother while the elder sat on another large, soft piece of furniture smaller than the one Kagome was laying on.

After about ten or fifteen minutes of explaining, Mama asked, "So this Kikyo woman... She's trying to reclaim the last piece of her soul from Kagome?"

"Yes," Kouga confirmed. "And when she finally put her mind to it that she was going to get it back once and for all, she made sure that one of the few things that had a chance to stop her was taken out of the equation." He paused and looked at Kagome's face behind her mother's head. She looked so peaceful as she slept. He couldn't stand doing nothing when she was in danger. "She made InuYasha choose between them; Kikyo or Kagome.... He chose Kikyo."

To this, Souta jumped up and stared hard at Kouga, his hands clenched into tight fists. "That's not true! It can't be! InuYasha is my friend! He'd never abandon Kagome!" Mama quickly shushed him and pulled the boy into her lap, soothing him as she looked to Kouga to continue.

"I'm afraid it is true. InuYasha loved her first, and apparently loves her still and more. Kikyo told InuYasha that if he would not help her reclaim her stolen soul, then he was to stand aside while she did it herself. Instead of helping to attack Kagome, InuYasha stood idly by as Kikyo hunted her down." Kouga then looked Mama straight in the eye, ensuring she understood his sincerity in what he said next. "I will do whatever it takes to ensure Kagome is safe. If InuYasha somehow follows us through the well to this time, I will drag him back to ours and finish him there. I doubt he will though. When I came to Kagome's screams, I saw him there. He was watching Kikyo and Kagome for the short time the two women faced each other. He simply stood there... then turned his back on them and hung his head... like mutt he is." Kouga added the last few words through tightly gritted teeth, his rage from the sight threatening to come loose.

As Kouga took a few breaths to calm back down, Souta looked to his mother's face. She simply nodded with a solemn look holding her soft features, confirming Kouga spoke only truth. "That bastard," the young one muttered as he crossed his arms over his chest and started hard at the floor. "To think, I thought he could be a big brother to me. But he didn't protect Kagome when she needed him." Tears of anger threatened to fall from his earthen-brown eyes. Eyes so much like his mothers; so much like Kagome's.

Mama looked to where Gramps sat in the chair nearby. His chin had dropped to his chest and a soft snore could be heard with each rise and fall of his chest. The poor man had likely had too much excitement for the day and gotten worn out. Her gaze then went to the window and she gave a slight nod when she saw that the sun was setting for the day. "Souta," she said softly as she looked to her son. "Why don't you help Kouga get settled in for the night? I'm sure you'll have an easier time explaining how things work since you've played the part of house tour guide before." She looked to Kouga before continuing. "You're welcome to sleep here in the living room with Kagome nearby. But I'm afraid you'll need a bath first if you're to stay in the house for very long at all." She offered an encouraging smile, showing she meant no offense by it.

Souta nodded and stood to his feet, reaching a hand towards Kouga to signal the demon to follow him. "She just means you don't have a smell that we're used to, so you need a bath to make it not so strong. Come on. I'll show you how the hot springs work in our time."

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Thanks for reading! Remember that reviews make me happy!


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